When Macbeth figured that not securing the guarantee that his issue would succeed him somehow gave him a fruitless crown of little value, he moved against all opposition and ended up losing it.
The tragedy of Macbeth, born of ambition, seems to have fallen in some political form upon the Conservative Party in the UK. First it was David Cameron who dangled the carrot of a popular vote on Europe as a bargaining chip to catapult the Conservatives back into power in 2015, and we all know how that panned out, with the people voting for Brexit without the government ever having either wanted or planned for it.
Theresa May thought she would go one better, taking her country back to the polls after just two years in a gamble to get a stronger mandate. Actually it was never about that, but rather about political manoeuvring, to try and crush the opposition which she thought had been weakened in the Brexit regions.
Now her crown has just got thornier and heavier, and is losing the little sparkle it had. She may well have lost it by the time this comment piece goes to press. The woman from Maidenhead is looking more like a top maiden without a head.
From having had a clear mandate, the Conservatives might now have to grovel and horse trade with the DUP, the Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland, to somehow survive in government. This is surely their worst nightmare considering that the top priority for Northern Ireland is that of retaining special privileges so as not to lose out on any benefits retained by their fellow Irishmen further south who remain in Europe.
The same applies if the Conservatives try to bring in the Scots, which is most unlikely. Any meat the Conservatives offer Northern Ireland or Scotland may be seen as indigestible poison by the English on the mainland. It could well turn out to be a two-edged sword if ever there was one.
Be it as a nation or a region, we always need to come together for the common good. How tragic it is that we so often do so only in times of war
Yet even a coalition with the Irish or Scottish may not suffice to form a government led by the Conservatives, which would remain tenuous at best, and may not even survive long enough to complete the Brexit negotiations.
In a sense the Labour Party in the UK is in the best place it could possibly be, having made huge advances at the polls, trailing the Conservatives by just one per cent, yet remaining comfortably in opposition rather than inheriting that thorny crown that needs to negotiate Brexit.
Any which way you pitch it, a UK party in government negotiating and eventually signing a Brexit is drinking from a poisoned chalice, the effects of which would leave it seriously debilitated and scarred for a long time to come.
It would appear that the Conservative Party has not once but twice in two years, gambled British interests for party gain, and may live to regret it big time, when it finds that it did not have as strong a hand as it had hoped and thought.
Whether it is in the shape of a Macbeth or the proverbial dog losing its bone in the river as it opens its mouth to try and grab the other illusory bone it sees in its own reflection, we so often see cases where people, businesses and political parties feel that what they have is never enough, and gamble away what they have in order to gain more.
This could well have been the case with many who voted for Brexit when the UK’s economy was one of the best performing ones in the EU.
Yet in hindsight the people voted on the basis of a package negotiated by Cameron if they stayed in, but with no idea of the alternative package they would end up with if they left. That sounds to me like more of a lottery than stability, very much like the gambler who knows how much he is paying out or “investing” for a ticket or a bet, but has absolutely no idea of his return, if any, on such a payment.
When we are basking in the warmth of summer, we so easily forget the biting cold of winter. We often take what we have for granted and in doing so squander it, and create unnecessary crises for ourselves.
It is like when we are caught in the bubble of youth, and could somehow never imagine being old. We should all be mindful of this and try, both collectively and individually, to utilise our resources as wisely and fairly as we could.
The 17th century English poet and cleric Robert Herrick had warned the young maidens of his day: “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, old time is still a-flying: and this same flower that smiles today, tomorrow will be dying.”
Be it as a nation or a region, we always need to come together for the common good.
How tragic it is that we so often do so only in times of war, when we are actually fighting for survival and the destruction of another nation or region. We end up with so much bickering, infighting and rivalries when we are going through periods of relative peace and prosperity, as if we are driven to switch on a self-destruct mechanism that leads to inevitable conflict and crisis, for which the average citizen always pays the highest price.
Dr Ragonesi is a lawyer and researcher in international affairs.